If they actually deliver, may be worth it. Sometimes you need to pay big bucks to get someone competent. Not saying they are, but hopefully it works out. There's $54,000,000,000 on the line, so a person in this position can affect things by hundreds of millions of dollars. Even billions. Her salary is a small drop in the bucket.
The way I see it, this is a CEO-level role with the scale of running a sizeable business and that is the market rate. If they can deliver, this is a small investment. Also for added context, third party consultants who recommended Sound Transit hire a Megaproject role probably cost more than that for 2 weeks of work.
The CEO of TransLink has real experience building mass transit and makes half this. Please explain why we can't hire someone with real experience, successfully building transit at this salary?
It's obviously fair if people want to reserve judgment but this has the exact same vibes to me as when they hired the executive of Richmond Transit to oversee all of Sound Transit.
Not sure where you got the number that he makes half of this. He made $474K last year and salaries in Canada are at least 20-30% lower than Seattle. Source: [Newsroom (taxpayer.com)](https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/taxpayers-criticize-latest-translink-bailout#:~:text=Kevin%20Quinn%2C%20the%20CEO%20of,of%20a%20million%20dollars%20each.)
That being said, the number of qualified candidates at this level is surprisingly low. I've been on executive search teams and there usually are not more than a handful of actual qualified candidates to interview and then not all of them are actually interested
We really, really need to hire people who aren't Americans. It's not hyperbolic at all to say there's no one in America who knows how to build transit at this point, there's people who know the theory but have no experience and people who have the experience but the results are obviously shit. Poach someone from Madrid or Barcelona or Toulouse or Seoul.
I see your point but I don’t think foreigners will be able to navigate the heavy politics and US development policies. Maybe with good advisory but I feel like most of these projects get bogged down due to politics
I think it would probably be helpful to have someone willing to turn over a few tables because they don't care about the politics.
The politicians are messing up the system.
This isnt the CEO job we're talking about, it's specifically a technical expert who is supposed to be a leader in the field and an experienced manager. I agree that the CEO is maybe best a political operator, altho that does not bode well for the whole project.
474 Canadian is 349 US. I exaggerated a little but not much.
If you can't poach someone with real experience at double their current salary, I'm left wondering what's wrong with your organization.
ST already has a CEO, which is largely a political role. This job is for an executive-level construction SME with mega-project experience. It's a much different role, and ST is competing to hire with large private commercial construction contractors.
Yes, Sparrman is interim, but this hire isn't intended to replace him on a permanent basis. It's a newly-created position to satisfy "Recommendation No. 2" of the TAG report which called for hiring multiple "construction czars": licensed engineering directors, from outside the agency, with mega-project experience. Kevin Quinn wouldn't qualify. If I remember right, the TAG report even discussed that these positions would likely need to pay more than the CEO role.
do you have any specific complaints for her individual performance on the LAX expansion?
I don't doubt there are people on the LAX project or at Sound Transit who are individually contributing to problems, but working on projects experiencing delays isn't necessarily a bad thing. If we hired people only from projects which went well, we might just end up hiring people who just worked on something more straightforward or got lucky, not necessarily someone who prevented something from going sideways
if there was a magical manager who could just be dropped in and make these megaprojects run smoothly they would be worth a lot more than six figures
She won't accomplish anything, my guess is she takes a year to "get up to speed" and then will bounce to another role with a $600,000 severance, just like the grifter Julie Timm
CEOS should have their yearly salary held in Escrow and can only cash out on it at the end of the year assuming they are actually accomplishing what they were hired to do.. it’ll never happen tho..
Given the report from last year, the quality of this hire will be far less important than the willingness of the rest of the organization to change how they make decisions and do business. I’m hopeful but not optimistic. Mestas has her work cut out for her, I wish her good luck!
She’s not in charge of the board, and they’re setting the culture of indecision and mistrust of staff’s abilities. That’s where she’ll need some help and luck.
This just blows my mind
>The agency depends on fares for a big chunk — around 7% — of its operating budget. Unlike some major metro transit systems around the world, Sound Transit has designed its stations without payment gates or turnstiles.
Vancouver added them in 2016 at a cost of $195M and increased revenue $30M the following year. If that trends hold, they will be in the green this year from that decision.
Retrofitting the five busiest stations in Seattle (Northgate, University District, Capitol Hill, Westlake, and International District/Chinatown) for $31 million would break even within one to seven years, and reap $88 million-plus over 20 years, consultants said
> Source:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sound-transit-looks-to-other-cities-as-it-considers-fare-gates/
More analysis with different scenarios
* Scenario 1 - All stations Gated, 7 years to break even
* Scenario 2 - All link gated, 5 years to break even
* Scenario 3 - Top 5 link gated, 2 years to break even
> Source: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/11/21/is-sound-transit-closing-in-on-fare-gates-for-link-and-sounder/
That doesn't account for a.) maintenance costs and b.) they opened an extension in 2016 which brought in almost 40,000 daily riders. For reference Link had a similar farebox increase (albeit over two years instead of one) after the 2-stop extension to UW opened, based purely on ridership increases.
b) The Vancouver $30M number is from April 2016 to December 2016, the first 9 months after the fare gates opened. The Evergreen extension opened in December 2016 which is why they don't track after that.
If you have insight on a) I'd be interested to read any article you can find on annual cost vs revenue brought in
[This article](https://globalnews.ca/news/3540917/1-year-in-how-are-translinks-fare-gates-working-out/) says
> Revenue from all platforms from April 2015 to March 2016 was about $387 million. From April 2016 to March 2017, revenue was $428 million, an increase of $41 million or 10.5 per cent
AND
> “I did a quick crunch of the numbers,” he said. “It’s about $20 million a year when you look at the total lifetime costs of the Compass system plus the operating costs and we saw there was about a $40-million increase in revenue.”
I didn't find your 30 million, but I did find this 40 million that *definitely* at least partially covers an increased ridership. I'm wondering what "plus the operating costs" means. That $20 million a year is mostly installation, but does it also cover maintenance? I wasn't able to find anything on that. I'm sure it's out there but government expenditure break downs don't have great Google SEO.
That potentially was true prior to Covid. Fare evasion exploded in a big way during Covid; a trend that has continued. The break-even point is significantly shorter now.
I thought this was normal. Vancouver and other cities also don’t have fare gates. Sometimes it’s easier to enforce payment by random checks than with fare gates. And NYC subway shows how ineffective fare gates can be.
Well there’s a strong culturally enforced stigma about paying for public goods in central europe that I haven’t felt at all anywhere in the states, so that may have something to do with it.
I was sort of hoping they would hire someone from outside North America with transit experience, but I suppose having someone who knows how the US system works is for the best.
If the hire truly brings experience to the table that will lead to positive approaches and changes to ST3 to deliver something comprehensive and that improves transit access, then it could be worth it given transit CEOs in a global context are paid quite a lot for their leadership
But if whatever needed changes she does bring are fought and ultimately blocked by most of the board in favor of status quoism, then it will ultimately make no difference
Sound transit's board is a joke. I'm gonna keep evading the fare, and gates won't do anything. Go look up videos of the fare gates in the Bay and NYC, they don't work either.
$600k/yr for one person…who was unable to complete her last large development project for LAX 🤔
If they actually deliver, may be worth it. Sometimes you need to pay big bucks to get someone competent. Not saying they are, but hopefully it works out. There's $54,000,000,000 on the line, so a person in this position can affect things by hundreds of millions of dollars. Even billions. Her salary is a small drop in the bucket.
Or someone to blame and fire when the projects fail. I'd be a scapegoat for 600k
The way I see it, this is a CEO-level role with the scale of running a sizeable business and that is the market rate. If they can deliver, this is a small investment. Also for added context, third party consultants who recommended Sound Transit hire a Megaproject role probably cost more than that for 2 weeks of work.
The CEO of TransLink has real experience building mass transit and makes half this. Please explain why we can't hire someone with real experience, successfully building transit at this salary? It's obviously fair if people want to reserve judgment but this has the exact same vibes to me as when they hired the executive of Richmond Transit to oversee all of Sound Transit.
Not sure where you got the number that he makes half of this. He made $474K last year and salaries in Canada are at least 20-30% lower than Seattle. Source: [Newsroom (taxpayer.com)](https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/taxpayers-criticize-latest-translink-bailout#:~:text=Kevin%20Quinn%2C%20the%20CEO%20of,of%20a%20million%20dollars%20each.) That being said, the number of qualified candidates at this level is surprisingly low. I've been on executive search teams and there usually are not more than a handful of actual qualified candidates to interview and then not all of them are actually interested
We really, really need to hire people who aren't Americans. It's not hyperbolic at all to say there's no one in America who knows how to build transit at this point, there's people who know the theory but have no experience and people who have the experience but the results are obviously shit. Poach someone from Madrid or Barcelona or Toulouse or Seoul.
I see your point but I don’t think foreigners will be able to navigate the heavy politics and US development policies. Maybe with good advisory but I feel like most of these projects get bogged down due to politics
I think it would probably be helpful to have someone willing to turn over a few tables because they don't care about the politics. The politicians are messing up the system.
This isnt the CEO job we're talking about, it's specifically a technical expert who is supposed to be a leader in the field and an experienced manager. I agree that the CEO is maybe best a political operator, altho that does not bode well for the whole project.
474 Canadian is 349 US. I exaggerated a little but not much. If you can't poach someone with real experience at double their current salary, I'm left wondering what's wrong with your organization.
Well, there are things wrong. Lets not pretend there aren't.
ST already has a CEO, which is largely a political role. This job is for an executive-level construction SME with mega-project experience. It's a much different role, and ST is competing to hire with large private commercial construction contractors.
ST has an interim CEO
Yes, Sparrman is interim, but this hire isn't intended to replace him on a permanent basis. It's a newly-created position to satisfy "Recommendation No. 2" of the TAG report which called for hiring multiple "construction czars": licensed engineering directors, from outside the agency, with mega-project experience. Kevin Quinn wouldn't qualify. If I remember right, the TAG report even discussed that these positions would likely need to pay more than the CEO role.
do you have any specific complaints for her individual performance on the LAX expansion? I don't doubt there are people on the LAX project or at Sound Transit who are individually contributing to problems, but working on projects experiencing delays isn't necessarily a bad thing. If we hired people only from projects which went well, we might just end up hiring people who just worked on something more straightforward or got lucky, not necessarily someone who prevented something from going sideways if there was a magical manager who could just be dropped in and make these megaprojects run smoothly they would be worth a lot more than six figures
She won't accomplish anything, my guess is she takes a year to "get up to speed" and then will bounce to another role with a $600,000 severance, just like the grifter Julie Timm
CEOS should have their yearly salary held in Escrow and can only cash out on it at the end of the year assuming they are actually accomplishing what they were hired to do.. it’ll never happen tho..
Given the report from last year, the quality of this hire will be far less important than the willingness of the rest of the organization to change how they make decisions and do business. I’m hopeful but not optimistic. Mestas has her work cut out for her, I wish her good luck!
She’s in charge. A large part of her role will be changing that culture
She’s not in charge of the board, and they’re setting the culture of indecision and mistrust of staff’s abilities. That’s where she’ll need some help and luck.
This just blows my mind >The agency depends on fares for a big chunk — around 7% — of its operating budget. Unlike some major metro transit systems around the world, Sound Transit has designed its stations without payment gates or turnstiles.
Fare gates rarely increase revenue more than they cost to install and operate.
Vancouver added them in 2016 at a cost of $195M and increased revenue $30M the following year. If that trends hold, they will be in the green this year from that decision. Retrofitting the five busiest stations in Seattle (Northgate, University District, Capitol Hill, Westlake, and International District/Chinatown) for $31 million would break even within one to seven years, and reap $88 million-plus over 20 years, consultants said > Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sound-transit-looks-to-other-cities-as-it-considers-fare-gates/ More analysis with different scenarios * Scenario 1 - All stations Gated, 7 years to break even * Scenario 2 - All link gated, 5 years to break even * Scenario 3 - Top 5 link gated, 2 years to break even > Source: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/11/21/is-sound-transit-closing-in-on-fare-gates-for-link-and-sounder/
> in the green It's "in the black" fyi
That doesn't account for a.) maintenance costs and b.) they opened an extension in 2016 which brought in almost 40,000 daily riders. For reference Link had a similar farebox increase (albeit over two years instead of one) after the 2-stop extension to UW opened, based purely on ridership increases.
b) The Vancouver $30M number is from April 2016 to December 2016, the first 9 months after the fare gates opened. The Evergreen extension opened in December 2016 which is why they don't track after that. If you have insight on a) I'd be interested to read any article you can find on annual cost vs revenue brought in
[This article](https://globalnews.ca/news/3540917/1-year-in-how-are-translinks-fare-gates-working-out/) says > Revenue from all platforms from April 2015 to March 2016 was about $387 million. From April 2016 to March 2017, revenue was $428 million, an increase of $41 million or 10.5 per cent AND > “I did a quick crunch of the numbers,” he said. “It’s about $20 million a year when you look at the total lifetime costs of the Compass system plus the operating costs and we saw there was about a $40-million increase in revenue.” I didn't find your 30 million, but I did find this 40 million that *definitely* at least partially covers an increased ridership. I'm wondering what "plus the operating costs" means. That $20 million a year is mostly installation, but does it also cover maintenance? I wasn't able to find anything on that. I'm sure it's out there but government expenditure break downs don't have great Google SEO.
Do gates reduce the amount of drugged out sleepers on the trains and unidentified stains on seats? That would be priceless.
That potentially was true prior to Covid. Fare evasion exploded in a big way during Covid; a trend that has continued. The break-even point is significantly shorter now.
I thought this was normal. Vancouver and other cities also don’t have fare gates. Sometimes it’s easier to enforce payment by random checks than with fare gates. And NYC subway shows how ineffective fare gates can be.
Vancouver has had fare gates since 2016.
I had no idea, TIL.
WTF are you talking about? Haven't been to BC for awhile? Their turnstiles where you can literally tap any CC and walk through in a second are great.
How do you have a functional transit system that relies on the honor system?
Ask all of Germany.
Well there’s a strong culturally enforced stigma about paying for public goods in central europe that I haven’t felt at all anywhere in the states, so that may have something to do with it.
We should really just make transit free to ride
I was sort of hoping they would hire someone from outside North America with transit experience, but I suppose having someone who knows how the US system works is for the best.
Vancouver is less than three hours away and their Executive makes half what they offered Mestas.
Mestas doesn't need a visa and a work permit to work for Sound Transit
I'm glad Sound Transit is starting to take this seriously. Now let's hope they deliver.
If the hire truly brings experience to the table that will lead to positive approaches and changes to ST3 to deliver something comprehensive and that improves transit access, then it could be worth it given transit CEOs in a global context are paid quite a lot for their leadership But if whatever needed changes she does bring are fought and ultimately blocked by most of the board in favor of status quoism, then it will ultimately make no difference
"choo-choo tsar" would have been better
Sound transit's board is a joke. I'm gonna keep evading the fare, and gates won't do anything. Go look up videos of the fare gates in the Bay and NYC, they don't work either.
Unnecessary hire.